1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a frozen cream puff paste.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The production of food products comprising a cream puff paste such as cream puff, eclair or paris-brest requires much labor. In particular, it is very difficult to produce uniform and excellent cream puff shells in the home or ordinary food service industry depending chiefly on part-time workers. Even in a confectionery shop or a bakery where skilled craftsmen are working, labor reduction has become more and more important, since the recent diversification of consumers' preference has substantially increased the number of products.
Accordingly, attempts have been made to develop a powdery mix or a frozen cream puff paste in order to facilitate the production of cream puff shells.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 77850/ 1980 and No. 82036/1984 propose each an instant powdery mix for cream puff, but these processes still require a great deal of skill for the production of a paste and the shaping of the obtained paste. On the other hand, a process which comprises preliminarily producing a paste, shaping it and then storing it in a frozen state suffers from some problems. When a cream puff paste of a common composition is frozen, retrogradation of starch, denaturation of protein and destruction of the paste tissue caused by the development of ice crystals are observed. Thus the paste would not sufficiently puff upon reheating. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 155041/1987 discloses the production of a frozen cream puff paste with the use of a unique baking powder. However this process is disadvantageous in that a prolonged storage (i.e., longer than three months) would reduce the volume of a baked puff shell and cause less cracking, thus lowering the commercial value of the product.